The overall attractiveness of the Swedish mining industry

Sweden’s mineral strategy from 2013 stipulates 19 concrete actions with the objective to increase the competitiveness of the Swedish mining and minerals industry so that Sweden maintains and strengthens its position as EU’s leading mining nation. One of these actions was to carry out an analysis of Sweden’s attractiveness as a mining country, from an international perspective. Copenhagen Economics was commissioned by the Swedish Authority, Tillväxtanalys (Growth Analysis) to carry out this analysis.

The main conclusions of our study are

• Swedish mining is attractive due to a strong mining cluster, good physical potential, good access to energy and infrastructure and a stable regulatory and fiscal regime
• Two major companies, state-owned LKAB and Boliden with well-established business models within iron ore and industrial metals respectively, dominate the Swedish exploration and mining activities. This may imply that Sweden falls short of exploration outside the scope of these companies. We suggest to look further into incentive schemes for smaller exploration companies.
• Rising opposition towards mining and recent court rulings against the decisions of the mining regulator may increase uncertainty and intransparency. This in turn may negatively affect investments in the sector going forward. We recommend policy makers to take a careful approach towards changes in policies affecting the sector